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October 29, 2013

Legendary punk band BLACK FLAG has reformed and will play this year’s Hevy Fest, set to take place August 2-4 in Port Lympne Wild Animal Park in Kent. The group’s only 2013 appearance in the U.K. will mark the first time in 30 years that the band’s played in the country.

BLACK FLAG’s lineup for the show will include singer Ron Reyes, who was a member of the band during 1979-1980 (after Keith Morris but before Dez Cadena) and was featured on the “Jealous Again” EP. He will be joined by guitarist and founder Greg Ginn as well as bassist Chuck Dukowski and drummer Roberto “Robo” Valverde.

Vocalist Henry Rollins joined BLACK FLAG in 1981 and left five years later. He has since released several music albums and established himself as a spoken-word artist and book author.

Now we have “The Chase,” which could be described as the “second new song from BLACK FLAG in a generation.” That’s right — fans have had to wait 28 years for the follow-up to 1985’s In My Head and now we’ve got two new Black Flag tracks in as many weeks.

“They have undoubtedly had the greatest impact on DIY record distribution, underground touring and hardcore music of any band, before or since,” Hevy Fest’s announcement reads. “There is a whole generation of musicians and fans that would cite BLACK FLAG as being the most important band to have influenced them, without ever even having the chance to see them perform live, until now.”

Kurt Cobains Top 50 Albums

1. The Stooges

2. Pixies – Surfer Rosa

Kurt says: A die-cast metal fossil of misplaced draft, with or without the fucking production. Everyone who has ever commented on ‘Surfer Rosa’ has said that the production’s amazing. I agree with that, but the songs are so strong that it wouldn’t have mattered if you’d listened to it through a boom-box.

I was completely nihilistic up until about four or five years ago, when I first heard this. It changed my attitude. It made me finally admit, after being into punk rock for so many years, that I finally liked other stiles as well. It made me finally admit that I’m a music lover. Their music reminded me of the music that I always wanted to do – and was doing – before I got into punk rock eight or nine years ago.

3. The Breeders

4. The Vaselines Son Of A Gun

Kurt says: I just have this feeling Eugene and Frances had a really cool relationship. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but I think it’s a really amazing thing when a couple can get on together and write some of the most beautiful songs I’ve ever heard. They’re kind of sharing their life with people. Eugene and Frances are the Captain & Tennille of the underground.

5. The Shaggs – Philosophy Of The World

Kurt says: It’s so obviously the real thing. I heard this one live song – a Carpenters song, maybe? – where they must have been playing a day centre, and the screams in the background are louder than the music. The Shaggs are another archetypal K band.

6. Fang – Landshark

7. MDC – Millions Of Dead Cops

8. Scratch Acid – Scratch Acid

9. Saccharine Trust – Paganicons

10. Butthole Surfers – Pee Pee The Sailor

11. Black Flag – My War

12. Bad Brains – Rock For Light

13. Gang Of Four – Entertainment

14. Sex Pistols – Never Mind The Bollocks

Kurt says: A million times more important than The Clash. How do I explain that? Hmm. Both were always a bad imitation of The Rolling Stones, in love with America. But at least they took their girlfriends on tour with them (The Slits). Their music was terrible, though. I blame Sandinista! for not letting me get into punk until years after I should have done – it was so bad.

The Pistols’ album has the best production of any rock record I’ve ever heard. It’s totally in-your-face and compressed. All the hype The Sex Pistols had was totally deserved – they deserved everything they got. Johnny Rotten was the one I identified with, he was the sensitive one. The only reason I might agree with people calling our band “The Sex Pistols of the 90’s” is that, for both bands, the music is a very natural thing, very sincere. But in terms of influence, fuck, no! Rock is too exhausted for that. We haven’t produced a totally original sound like that. We might be uncompromising, but that’s about it. We’re an obvious metamorphosis.

15.The Frogs – It’s Only Right And Natural

16. PJ Harvey – Dry

17. Sonic Youth – Daydream Nation

18. The Knack – Get The Knack

19. The Saints – Know Your Product

20. Kleenex – Kleenex/Liliput

21. The Raincoats – The Raincoats

22. Young Marble Giants – Colossal Youth

Kurt Says: The music relaxes you, it’s total atmospherics. It’s just nice, pleasant music. I love it. The drum machine has to have the cheesiest sound ever. We’re going to be on a Young Marble Giants compilation, doing ‘Credit In The Straight World’. I had a crush on the singer for a while – didn’t everyone? I didn’t know much about them – the Moxham brothers, right? I heard they might be getting back together again recently. Isn’t it weird how, when you hear something like that, you still get excited, even though you know you shouldn’.

23. Aerosmith – Rocks

24. Various – What is it?

25. R.E.M. – Green

26. Shonen Knife – Burning Farm

Kurt says: This was the first cassette that came out on K. Eventually, after a week of listening to it every day, I started crying. That’s how much it affected me. I just couldn’t believe that three people from a totally different culture could write songs as good as those, because I’d never heard any other Japanese music or artist who ever came up with anything good.

Everything about them is just so fucking endearing. They’re not too cute! That’s part of the charm. Do I think there’s a paedophiliac element to their appeal? I think in Japanese culture in general there’s a paedophiliac element – most of the women there dress op as young girls. It’s weird.

I’m sure that I was twice as nervous to meet them as they were to meet us. I didn’t want to offend or scare them in any way, because I know I’m a scruffy, slimy person who might scare them off – and that’s exactly what I did. They were afraid of me. In fact, on one of our first dates together, they saw me walking towards them and they screamed at the top of their voices, turned around and ran away, and then peeked their heads out of their dressing room. I was trying to reassure them that I was harmless. The communication we had with them was deathly silence and a lot of smiling. In many ways, they’re the ultimate K band, because they are sincere, they are real. They don’t’ purposely put their guitars out of tune and they don’t purposely sing out of tune.

27. The Slits – Typical Girls

28. The Clash – Combat Rock

29. Void/Faith/Split EP

30. Rites Of Spring – Rites Of Spring

31. Beat Happening – Jamboree

32. Tales Of Terror – Tales Of Terror

33. Leadbelly – Last Sessions Volume 1

Kurt says: William Burroughs turned me onto that guy. He said that if you want to hear true honest music, you should hear Leadbelly. The songs are just amazing heartfelt. Leadbelly was this poor black man in the early 1900s who went to jail a few times for wife-beating and robbery and getting into fights and bootlegging liquor. While he was is in prison, he started playing the guitar, and he sang so well that the governor started to like him, and let him out of jail. Leadbelly became an apprentice with Blind Lemon Jefferson and started recording songs, but none of the commercial recordings he made ever captured his true essence, except for these late sessions. They happened when this guy who’d been following his career for a few years caught him on a two-track tape recorder one night when they were hanging out at this hotel. It’s just really cool.

I hope that my songs approximate that honesty. That’s what I strive for. He was like the first punk rocker: he’d get into town, walk into an all-white bar, try to have a drink, get beat up and then go to jail because of it. So it’s really cool to hear this music, especially the air of the recordings themselves, because it’s so eerie to hear it on this crackly two-track. But that’s what Folkway records are like – they’re awesome. They even have the entire Watergate tapes available as a 10-album set. I’m gonna get a Folkways tattoo next to my Black Flag tattoo.

34. Mudhoney – Superfuzz Bigmuff

35. Daniel Johnston – Yim Jump Music

36. Flipper – Generic Flipper

37. The Beatles – Meet The Beatles

38. Half Japanese – We Are They Who Ache With Amorous Love.

Kurt says: I like to listen to Jade Fair and Half Japanese with headphones on, walking around shopping malls – in the heart of the American culture. I just think that, if people could hear this music right now, they’d melt, they wouldn’t know what to do, they’d start bouncing off the walls and hyperventilating. So I turn up the music really loud and pretend it’s blasting through the speakers in the mall.

39. Butthole Surfers – Locust Abortion Technician

40. Black Flag – Damaged

41. The Record

42. Flowers Of Romance

43. Public Enemy – It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back

44. The Marine Girls – Beach Party

45. David Bowie – The Man Who Sold The World

46. The Wipers – Is This Real?

47. The Wipers – Youth Of America

48. The Wipers – Over The Edge

Kurt says: Is This Real? Yes it is. The Wipers released maybe four or five albums. The first two were totally classic and influenced The Melvins and all the other punk rock bands. They’re one of the bands I tried to assimilate. Their songs were so good. Greg Sage was pretty much the romantic, quiet, visionary kind of guy. What more can I say about them? They started Seattle grunge rock in Portland, 1977.

October 27, 2013
by Rich Monday

Black Flag With New Release For First Time In 28 Years

Revived hardcore punk band Black Flag will release “What The…”, their first studio album in 28 years, on November 5th. The group put the 22-track album up on iTunes today for pre-orders and the sales were high.

Earlier this year, the group released two new songs that are included in the track list for “What the…” In May, they posted the song “Down in the Dirt” as a free download in exchange for an email address list signup. Shortly after that, Black Flag posted another new song, “The Chase,” as a video release.

Today Greg Ginn is still producing and performing!

Guitarist Greg Ginn, who co-founded Black Flag in 1976, announced the return of the group in January. Its lineup includes vocalist Ron Reyes, who sang on the band’s 1980 EP Jealous Again, as well as two new members, bassist Dave Klein and drummer Gregory Moore (who played drums at a Black Flag reunion show in 2003). In April, the group announced they would be releasing a new album. Ginn doesn’t want it to be about a reunion, or just some sort of greatest-hits act. It’s not Beatlemania, you know; for him, it’s about the music. So there has to be new music for him to even consider playing the old music.

A young Black Flag punk band in 1976 was born!

Around the same time Ginn announced the band’s return, a group of ex–Black Flag members calling themselves simply “Flag” began touring, playing songs from the band’s catalog. In August, the guitarist filed a lawsuit against that band’s members and former Black Flag front man Henry Rollins over alleged trademark infringement and related issues. A U.S. District Court judge ruled in early October that he would not provide Ginn with a temporary injunction against his former band mates due to a lack of evidence.

Black Flag will begin their tour in Puerto Rico and Australia shortly after the legendary hard core band releases their album “What The…” made available world wide.

NEW TRACK RELEASES:

1 My Heart’s Pumping
2 Down in the Dirt
3 Blood and Ashes
4 Now Is the Time
5 Wallow in Despair
6 Slow Your Ass Down
7 It’s so Absurd
8 Shut Up
9 This Is Hell
10 Go Away
11 The Bitter End
12 The Chase
13 I’m Sick
14 It’s Not My Time to Go-Go
15 Lies
16 Get Out of My Way
17 Outside
18 No Teeth
19 To Hell and Back
20 Give Me All Your Dough
21 You Gotta Be Joking
22 Off My Shoulders

Fans may be confused to see two different groups performing this year under the name of Hermosa Beach punk outfit Black Flag — one fronted by founding guitarist Greg Ginn, and another touring as Flag with Ginn’s former band mates Keith Morris, Dez Cadena, Chuck Dukowski and Bill Stevenson.

Part of the lawsuit focuses on Dukowski, who previously sued Ginn and SST in 2007. At the time, Dukowski was insisting that he was entitled to a portion of Black Flag’s revenue because he was still a member of the band. They eventually settled, with Dukowski reportedly agreeing to never perform under the Black Flag name or use the logo for profit. Ginn claims he and his label, SST Records, exclusively own the rights to the Black Flag name (and “Flag” variation) and infamous logo, which Flag use on tour.

Ginn accuses Garfield and Morris of lying to the Trademark Office on registrations; using his own label’s record covers to feign as though they’ve been continuing to use Black Flag since 1979; and in what’s alleged to be an act of “outrageous fraud,” using bootleg SST T-shirts in an attempt to show they’ve been making such products in that time.

Also named as a defendant is Black Flag’s most famous former member Henry Rollins, known for his own music, current radio show on KCRW, a column in LA Weekly and a role on FX’s Sons of Anarchy.

Unfortunately, the competition has culminated in a lawsuit.

On Friday, August 2, 2013, Greg Ginn sued his former band mates, seeking an injunction against their current tour, which kicked off in May and will stop in Los Angeles (pending this case)

The suit describes the alleged infringement of the logo and name “Flag” as “a colorable imitation” that’s “likely to cause confusion, or deception among consumers.”

Ginn claims he and his label, SST Records, exclusively own the rights to the Black Flag name (and “Flag” variation) and logo, which Flag uses on tour.

Greg Ginn accuses Rollins and Morris of lying to the trademark office on registrations. He also accuses the members of FLAG of using his own label’s record covers to feign as though they’ve been continuing to use Black Flag since 1979, and, in what’s alleged to be an act of “outrageous fraud,” using bootleg SST Records t-shirts in an attempt to show they’ve been making such products in that time.

Interestingly, while not actually a part of any reunion, former vocalist (and most famous ex-member) Henry Rollins has also been named as a defendant. However, as divulged in the 55th, 56th, and 57th paragraphs of the suit on September 12, 2012, Rollins (aka “Henry Garfield”) and Keith Morris jointly applied to trademark the term “Black Flag,” as well as the Black Flag logo.

Rollins has noted several times — the following quote is from a 2011 Post article were Rollins states that “Greg Ginn doesn’t pay royalties. No royalties, no statements, nothing. At least not to me and several of my old band mates.”

However, a judge has found that SST has no rights to the Black Flag copyright; Ginn has special rights to any of the trademarks; neither Ginn nor the label cared about copyrghts or trademarks until now; Rollins never quit Black Flag (technically correct, since it was Ginn who “quit” the band in 1985, not Rollins); and fans are smart enough to know which band is which.

Here’s what all of that looks like in legalese, via FLAG:

(1) the court found that SST had no rights in the trademarks;(2) Ginn seemed to have no individual rights in the Black Flag trademarks;(3) even if either had had any rights in those marks, they had abandoned those rights through a failure to police the mark for nearly 30 years;(4) the defendants’ claim that the Black Flag assets were owned by a statutory partnership comprised of various former band members – even if these members only consisted of Henry and Ginn, based on (a) accepting Ginn’s argument that he never quit and given that there is no evidence or allegation that Henry ever quit – has merit;(5) that even if the plaintiffs had some trademark claim in the marks, there was no likelihood of consumer confusion between Black Flag and Flag given the ample press coverage over the dispute; and(6) the trademark application and registration that Henry and Keith made was done in good faith (e.g. not fraudulently) – and is thus not necessarily subject to cancellation – given that they understood their actions to have been done on the part of the Black Flag partnership (see No. 4, above).